Comparing Buddha and Jesus

It is being said by so many people in modern American society that all religions have so many similarities they are practically the same and all lead to the same God. This is so fundamentally false and it is due to the secularism’s prominent influence of colossal misinformation about all religions and their respective doctrines in similarity and dissimilarity. Modern day secularism is making a crucial mistake in both deliberated and undelierberated ignorance of being willing and bold to thoroughly probe religion as much as they possibly can in effort to differentiate for themselves between what has been prevaricated and what the original story is or was. Accepting all religions as a way to God is really being narrow minded in of itself, despite what secular culture declares; it is an easy way out of truthfully edifying oneself and shows a lack of conscientiousness.

To prove that all religions are not exactly the same or lead to the same God, we will use the comparison between Christianity and Buddhism as one example Let’s compare the four noble truths of Buddhism to the Bible. The four noble truths very briefly say of what is the source of suffering: desires, cravings, ignorance, delusion, hatred, and destructive urges. Furthermore, the trajectory that the four noble truths intend to direct someone on is the trajectory going onward through a long journey of acquiring full enlightenment and omniscience via elimination of suffering which is partway done by eliminating desires and cravings which are the guiding forces of all thoughts and actions.

First of all, the Bible reiterates again and again, almost to the point of redundancy, that no one can achieve omniscience because of human beings’ innate iniquitousness and inability of fully comprehending the supernatural. Otherwise, if people could attain such things they would become God or become like God.

The Bible implicitly says of suffering being chiefly caused by desires and cravings through its anecdotal sayings and detailed insight on the causes and effects of suffering. Incongruously, Buddhism promises a life of blissfulness as a reward of attaining enlightenment and having the four noble truths not give guidelines of enumerated precise precepts on how to perceive of life in the way that will ensure that rewarding blissfulness. Whereas, the Bible actually gives precise guidelines on what to avoid and what to embrace to partially eliminate suffering and bring joy. Not to mention, at the same time, it also promises for suffering to abound from the unending contumelies that a Christian will face from the those who proudly dissent against the teachings of Christ. The Bible, in some explicit and implicit ways, says that suffering cannot cease to persist because everyone in mankind, both malignant and innocent alike, will repetitively experience suffering because of the afflictions mankind will incur upon each other via mankind’s undying practices in murder, adultery, greed, gossip, backstabbing, swindling, thievery, trickery, belligerence, inimicality, lust for power, malfeasance, and various forms of misappropriations. Carnal thinking is innate and inveterate for all mankind and is thereby forever remaining the causation of misdeeds leading to suffering.  

Many say that the story of the lives of the Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) and Jesus Christ are very similar, when in actuality they are very different but are still compatible in some aspects and share some paradigms.

The Buddha was raised in great luxury and in wealth. His parents practically held him in captivity inside their castle.  His father did not want him to experience the outside world, because it was predicted by a sage that Siddhartha would end up becoming a “light unto the world” instead of becoming what his father desired of him to become, which was the ruler of his castle and land. Until the age of 29, while being wedded and with a son, Siddhartha was held captive in his father’s castle before he requested of his father to allow him to go on an exploration of the city. While exploring, Siddhartha ended up seeing things that he never thought could possibly exist. He saw four things: a dead man, a sick man, a poor man, and an old man. This caused him to pensively inquire the nature and purpose of life and why it had all of its causes and effects. Shortly thereafter, he decided to leave his life of grandeur and forget about his upbringing of wealth and royalty and a destiny of becoming a ruler of the land. Stunningly, he seemingly didn’t really have much of a struggle leaving the wife and son he had at the time. He left to travel the lands and live amongst paupers; starving himself, becoming emaciated, and living a life of asceticism. He did this for about six years before realizing that no such thing could lead him to enlightenment. He also did a lot of preaching while he traveled much like what Jesus did.

  

Jesus was not at all born into wealth but was born to a mother and father who were very young and poor with his father being a carpenter. Jesus ended up becoming a carpenter as well. Not much is said of the life of Jesus while he was growing up. The Bible focuses mainly on the last three years of his life which is when he had his ministry.

Jesus and the Buddha are strikingly similar in what they preached concerning how someone should morally conduct themselves with their speech and actions and what they should allow enter into their mind and heart through the gateway of their eyes and ears. Both Jesus and the Buddha emphasized about sin and their consequence in a way that was identical in ideals, sentiments, values, and goals; the only difference is the wording of their rhetoric. In both Buddhism and Christianity, you are to not inflict harm upon anyone and there is to be no demonstrations of sexual misconduct. You are to take care of the wounded and the poor. You are to have wholesome intentions, wholesome thoughts, wholesome speech, wholesome conduct, and a concentrated effort on having goodness become abound. You are supposed to exercise chastity, tolerance, temperance, gentleness, honesty, compassion, gracefulness, and shrewd discernment. You are to work courteously, cohesively, and assiduously with others to achieve as much tranquility and harmony as possible. Most of all, you are to love others as much as you love yourself.

When we juxtapose some Buddhist scriptures with Biblical scriptures we find strong similarities in their fundamental precepts.

The Buddha said “Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, even so, cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings. Let your thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world.”

Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

The Buddha said, “The fault of others is easily perceived, but that of oneself is difficult to perceive; a man winnows his neighbour's faults like chaff, but his own fault he hides, as a cheat hides the bad die from the gambler.”

Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

Despite the overabundance of doctrinal graciousness, compassion, and generosity in both of these religions, they give a lot of notice to the imperativeness of recompense being made when a terrible misdeed is committed. The Buddha said this, “He who inflicts pain on innocent and harmless persons, will soon come to one of these ten states: He will have cruel suffering, loss, injury of the body, heavy affliction, or loss of mind, or a misfortune coming from the king, or a fearful accusation, or loss of relations, or destruction of treasures, or lightning-fire will burn his houses; and when his body is destroyed, the fool will go to hell.”

And Jesus said this, “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.”

The Buddha was a normal sentient being who had to work to achieve what he believed to be truth. The Buddha had to sit underneath a pipal tree, which is now called the Bodhi Tree in Bodh Gaya, India, and refuse not to depart from underneath it until he fully underwent the process of meditative jhana, which he found to be the true way to enlightenment. The meditative jhana is what the Buddhists called the Middle Way in which is a path of moderation away from the extremes of sensual indulgence and self mortification. Supposedly, after 49 days, he finally unlocked the indubitable truth about all that is of the nature, essence, and meaning of life. He reached nirvana and the state of peace of mind dispelling anything and everything soulfully, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually afflictive.

Jesus already had the indubitable truth with him since He was God in the form of a man. Jesus said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father unless he goes through me.” The Buddhist scriptures never speak of the Buddha as being the only way to salvation and to God. He helped the diseased, the crippled, the paupers, and the wounded but he never did it by means of supernatural powers. It was Jesus who was God in the form of a man and exercised supernatural powers to heal the blind, feed the hungry, and cure sickness.

            
             And now finally, the most important part of this all, the Buddha’s death was very simple. He died of old age when he was eighty years old. The death was triggered by his body reaction to a dish of wild mushroom. Jesus on the other hand, died a very violent and bloody crucifixion for publicly calling himself a king. This, according to the Romans, was considered to be blasphemy and the worst form of heresy, something iniquitous enough to be punishable by crucifixion. Jesus died for the sake of bringing atonement to God for the transgressions of everyone in all mankind.

The Wheel of Life and Reincarnation- Believable or not Believable

The concept of reincarnation and the religions that have it as one of their core beliefs is shrouded in such great mystery. Interestingly, no holy books, testaments, and strong primary sources provide any answers regarding its origination. We do know that reincarnation originated with the Hindus and has been a central tenet of the Hindu religion as well as other religions formed later in history such as Jainism, Sikhism, Druidism, and Spiritism. The Buddhist religion also adopted this view of the afterlife even though they do not refer to it as reincarnation but instead “rebirth” because of their belief in the non-existence of the soul. The ancient traditions of these religions have taught its followers conceive of us earthly inhabitants as undergoing the “wheel of life” (samsara) or a interminable cycle of life, death, and rebirth. After our flesh experiences death, the immortalized and immaterialized force or energy that once occupied our flesh transmigrates to a different body, being, or thing. What that next body, being, or thing that our energy will then occupy is contingent upon our qualitative moral and immoral volitional acts in which determine the level of or mixture of good and bad karma that we reap upon ourselves during our lives. The fortune and misfortune that we experience in our present life as well as our next life will be consequentially proportional to the good and bad choices we make.      

This issue, when it comes to religion and the afterlife, is trying to decipher which is wrong and right, believable or unbelievable, rational or irrational, foundational or unfoundational. Seemingly, no matter how much scientific research is conducted to prove, disprove, or at least explain religion, in the end, we find ourselves coming back to the same familiar place, in that, it is all based on the matter of faith and what is most cogent and emotionally fulfilling for the individual who believes in it. Though nevertheless, scientific insight assists us to reach for the clearest and most satisfactory personal conclusion possible regardless of the impossibility in attaining full disproof or proof of any particular theory, hypothesis, or claim.

 The only empirical evidence that has been provided to us in support of reincarnation being an actual part of reality is by asking those who have underwent hypnosis and allegedly saw into their past lives. Conversely, the latest parapsychological research in this regard shows the probability of inaccurately accessing a real memory is far too great. Researchers have conducted experiments with many people who have undergone the hypnotic process to access the memories of their past lives. These believers of reincarnation were asked to read out loud a list of non-famous names, and then afterwards were made to wait for two hours before reading the same non-famous names they saw before in addition to a number of famous names and a number of non-famous names not seen prior. The task for them was to correctly identify which names were famous. It was found that the believers of reincarnation in comparison to the non-believers of reincarnation were nearly twice as likely to wrongly identify the names. They tended to misidentify the non-famous names they had seen in the prior first task as being famous names. This is a sure indicator of what is called a source-monitoring error in which means that those with susceptibility to such an error will have difficulty recognizing where a certain memory might come from.

When it comes to trying to accurately access such memories by means of hypnosis, it is very likely that whatever thoughts the person experiences, they are mistaking those thoughts to be memories of past lives because of the long and drawn out instructions engaging them in “potential” ideas. Through the suggestive influence of the instructor the hypnotized individual gains familiarity with his thoughts and ideas of such “past events” in which transition him/her into a mental state which may be likely misconceived as a vision. The euphoria of crossing over such an unthinkable mind and body interface to conjure up such vivid visualizations creates an illusory effect. The deep mind-penetration enhances the illusive spiritualizing effect of the current mental state further convincing the individual that they are actually coming into contact with memories of their past lives. They are unable to distinguish between a real memory and a thought that has been suggested to them. Parapsychological studies show that those who are prone to make source-monitoring errors also have very vivid imaginations and have strong creative minds more so than the average individual.

                  Many people seek reincarnation therapy because they have the belief that their current depression, severe distress, anxiety, sleeplessness, or psychological problems can be dealt with if they gain clarification of who they were in past lives. All of these problems can also contribute to source-monitoring errors while in the process of hypnosis and trying to access memories. In this case people may be too highly misdirected in their motivation to explain and diagnose their issue. 

                A certain distinct approach to all of this involving estimation and mathematics is significant in querying the concept of reincarnation. As of July 1, 2011 the world population has been estimated to be 6.97 million. There is a major difference in world population today compared to what it was in the year 1350 when it was around 300 million. Many things have taken place since then. Though the world population has been slowed by such cataclysmic events: the Bubonic Plague, the Great Famine, the Hundred Years War, World War 1 and 2; it has still grown incrementally thus indicating a very necessary query. If there were 300 million people living on earth in 1350 where did the new 5.7 billion new souls come from? If reincarnation does not involve new energies and souls being created then how can populations grow through time if no new energies and souls are created? Did each person from generations and centuries ago contain six souls to emanate and now constitute the current number of earthly inhabitants?

                If people’s memories of past lives are so accurate then why do we have so many people claiming to have been Jesus Christ, Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Galileo, etc. ? Can we say the reason why so many people claim to have been these famous historical figures is because people centuries and generations ago did possess more than one energy force or soul? If so, then is that still happening today?   

Perhaps a more significant query about reincarnation concerns not necessarily its level of plausibility but rather to what level is it legitimately meritorious. Is this system of morality actually facilitating the preservation and protection of life instead of facilitating its destruction?  Reincarnation is a system of morality that has had such profound effects on many societies so much that it causes them to starve to death.  In India, the people will refuse to kill livestock or any living thing suitable for eating because of their adherence to Ahimsa which is the traditional belief of the unconditional love, kindness and non-violence that is essential to be shown to all living things by all other living things. In India no one should bring any harm to any living thing because everyone and everything is connected through reincarnation. Animals are considered to be pitiful since they do not have the acute cognizance in being able to change their personal circumstances, to effectively avoid suffering, and to alter what they may reap from karma.

Some may argue in defense of the sacredness of the cow saying they are the only means for plowing fields since tractors cannot be warranted because of insufficient amount of land per Indian civilian. Even if the land mass were able to be increased the annual monsoon season would render the tractor useless through the extreme softening of the soil which would not allow the tractor to till. They argue that India’s paramount causes of death are urban overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, and a lack of medical facilities instead of it being a lack of meat being acquired by means of cow slaughtering. According to the defenders of India's religious traditions, India is doing itself great justice in following this superstition. On the contrary, a surplus of cattle cannot possibly be non-detrimental to the environment, civilians, and even the cattle themselves. Regional lack of fodder and water along with overstocking and overgrazing, cattle are becoming ineffectual due to such unbridled chronic malnutrition, parasitic infestations, and immunodeficiencies in the livestock. India in all of its regions and agricultural areas largely populated with poorly nourished cattle are also fiscally stretching themselves far too thin because of the awful expenses in vaccinations, which too often become vitiated due to the lack of proper refrigeration.

So in conclusion, what should one personally say about reincarnation? No matter what scientific basis or substantial proof may be provided either in favor or disfavor of such a thing, there will always be a number of people to believe in it and disbelieve in it. In the end, it all boils down to a matter of faith and personal satisfaction for the believer and non-believer. 

A Different Kind of Morality

Ayn Rand, a Russian-American novelist and intellectual thinker most noted for her philosophical novel called Atlas Shrugged written in 1957, but first had her initial rise to fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead, is a remarkable creature in her way of thinking. She was and still is likely to challenge one’s conventional beliefs and perspectives as to how they should effectively and morally live their lives. Her fictional works obviously present her as a strong proponent of individualism, laissez-faire capitalism, and governmental power having limitations in control, and as a person quite opposed to the welfare state and its system of taxation. She was firm in the promotion of ethical egoism and firm in the rejection of the commonplace accustomed code of altruism, and instead invented her own code of altruism. She believed that each and every individual being is morally entitled to serve their own self interest, that everything that one does for others he/she must also do for himself/herself for the sake of authenticity and for the sake of his/her own personal fulfillment. It is this philosophy of hers that she considers, in an interview with Mike Wallace, to be objectivism or representational of logic and fact rather than being representational of subjectivism or anything based on just a simple non-universal and personal viewpoint.

In a 1959 film, Wallace interviews Rand and refers to her philosophy as “Randism”, in which during this segment of the video she immediately protests to her philosophy being referred to as this, because of her desire in having it be generally interpreted and referred to as objectivism. I find a bit of irony in this since I have come across yet another philosopher who tries to claim their philosophy to be objective. We do in fact have such prolific philosophers all claiming to have indubitable and intrinsic truths, but yet, all of which they claim to be so indubitable and intrinsic are also so dichotomous to each other, how can we not question reality and ask “Is objectivism really existent and can objective truths be absolutely uncovered?” “Is every proposition claiming to hold absolutism of truth, in actuality, holding ulterior subjectivism?”

Clearly Ayn Rand is not supportive of religious faith or any reliance on something above and beyond human existence, but is rather supportive of what is considered to be logic, evident, and plausible. Of course, this is really nothing newly innovative on her part since the prolific number of intellectuals, both preceding her and after her, are evermore operating in this hackneyed pattern of perception and conclusion of reality. I understand why those who are not advocates of faith believe that we people of faith are irrational, and it is because they perceive of us working so hard to serve and abide by the laws of an entity not visible to our eyes or audible to our ears. Such intellectuals do not want to be circumscribed by some idea of the cosmos that perhaps people of society quite possibly could have formed through their imagination and have promulgated to the rest of society to serve. Intellectuals like Ayn Rand, because of the orthodox perspective that religion has formed and prevalently practices through contorted interpretations of doctrine and pulpit-sophistry, think that religion and the god(s) that each religion serves literally want to subjugate your entire life and being to prevent you from attaining your greatest potentiality of identity, intellectual thought, and innovation. I, hereby claim to be a testament against such paranoia of the God I serve in that He is not anything like this since. We are not entitled to conform to one imposed perception of the reality of God, but instead are entitled to conform to our own personal interpretations of Biblical texts, and through our own individualistic relationships with God figure out for ourselves what is obligatory.

This is not to say that all intellectual thinkers are rejecters of faith, because there are intellectuals who are in fact supportive of religious faith.

Many philosophers who are rejecters of faith, much like Ayn Rand, are in a round-about way inevitably the same with the exception of certain aspects differing. They are the same in  seemingly to always have the same exact sentiments and reasoning for rejecting religious faith; nevertheless holding the belief that anything reliant on the supernatural is nothing more than pure reliance on emotional consolation and/or euphoria which does not entirely provide any credible remedy and momentous wisdom.

I detect that her rejection of religious faith is derivative of her detestation of the moral precept of “being your brother’s keeper”. She conceives of this as being some form of collectivism and socialism and a lacking of individualism and universal liberty. I can most certainly understand where she is coming from in this regard, because I feel as though perhaps the church is liable or may tend to condemn someone for failing to give unto the poor. I can understand where she is coming from; I believe there is a looming fear within people of having to give and give so much that they end up not having enough left for themselves. There appears to be some kind of fear of persecution from the church or fear of them enforcing condemnation of selfishness, corruption, ignorance upon those who have not much to give or are struggling to give, and will say the Lord is going to punish them for their failure. I refuse to digress in saying there are existent churches, sectors, and religious systems who execute this type of persecution. Additionally, I also refuse to digress in saying that allowing our perceptions and feelings toward God to be controlled by mankind’s sinfulness and poor examples of righteousness is entirely unwise. Not to mention the fact there are also say existent Christian churches and other various religious sects that do not do this. At this point I cannot directly say what religious sects are guilty of this, but I am merely stating the obvious detestable guilt which is used to enforce people to give money or to do whatever it is that the religion tries to manipulate them to do. 

Perhaps Ayn Rand conceives of the church as another institution, if it were brought to power as a government rule or theocracy, with its unlimited prerogatives, would wield its power uncontrollably thus bringing upon the people oppression. Frankly, she is right about this and frankly whether the governing entity is conservative or liberal it will bring oppression when given too much power. As long as mankind is preconditioned and programmed by its carnal nature, and as long as institutions are perpetuated by mankind for this matter, regardless if whether or not the presiding institution acts under the name of God, they will corruptively use their unlimited prerogatives when it comes to fulfilling their own self interest. Furthermore, I must reiterate my assertion in saying that we should not be left to base our interpretation of the character of God solely on our perception of people, their deeds and misdeeds, and any one single man-made interpretation of God’s desires and personality.

In watching the interview between Rand and Wallace, I can conceptualize several hypothetical situations of gradual processes throughout the course of one's life that would cause them to hold this morality. I can also understand why she may be abiding by these precepts, however, I believe that her precepts are in fact not totally worthy of adherence, because if man were to adhere to such code of morality I can foresee there being many great mishaps and great societal degradation, more so than necessary. It seems as though she is intending to eliminate any and all moral conviction that compels us to help someone else when in actuality we don’t really desire to do so. She is merely trying to facilitate her life so she doesn’t have to make any inconvenient sacrifices that will inevitably deny her of comfortableness. This is completely understandable, for it seems as though all of us have the tendency to operate in this manner already, perhaps, because humans are inherently selfish and thus need to be taught the meaning of nobility and the fulfillment that can be gained in helping others.

Her philosophy is highly conducive of a dilemma much like if someone were to fall and break their ankle, anyone walking by should bypass this person if the only reason they would try to help them would be to avoid the guilt they would feel for not helping them or to avoid having other people condemn them for not helping the fallen person. Accordingly, no one should  help the person if inevitable resentment were to follow because of the moral imperative. Consequently, one has to sacrifice being on time for an appointment or some type of important event that they were on their way to as this incident took place.

Where I do agree with Ayn Rand is we should not have to help others who are going to severely take advantage of our kindness, but instead help them until they are fully capable of helping themselves. We should in fact help someone when it is in our self-interest and we whole-heartedly desire to help them because we have a servant's heart or someone who finds much fulfillment in helping others. Additionally, I have an inquisitional approach that may slightly oppose Rand in perhaps trying to motivate people to develop a self-interest that is directed towards others, and it is: "What if we do not often enough have the motive to help other people when they seriously need help? What if too often we are so caught up in our own agendas so much that we forget about those who are in serious need, and all the while, being in the midst of a society that is greatly declining in prosperity and all the things above, we continue to decline even more because the lack of sacrificial service? What would become of our societal future of success and prosperity?" It seems as though Rand is endeavoring to escape being burdened with any type of inconvenience or ever having to make a sacrifice for anything; which is something very understandable because don't we all try to avoid inconvenience as much as we can?

According to Ayn Rand, the altruistic morality in “being our brother’s keeper”, everyone unhappily becomes enslaved to everyone. She sees this form of morality to be a consequential causation of collectivism and socialism. I object, for the moral precept in being our brother’s keeper does not have to entail the oppression of socialism. In being our brother’s keeper we do not sign all of our rights and our entire life over to meeting the needs of the poor before we tend to our own needs, that is unless if we decide do this because it is in our own self interest. There should be no compulsion and requirement against our free will to make us do what is commonly perceived as altruistic.

We arrive at action by voluntary consent and voluntary cooperation of man, unforced. Her stance on politics in some aspects I find to be quite favorable since it is fundamentally right-wing and quite pragmatic. However, her philosophy has its flaws and even could be precarious or non-beneficial if it were to be entirely executed in our society. I agree the government should be prohibited from being forceful in intruding into the lives of all of the constituents for its selfish advancement such as daunting upon the people unreasonable and nocuous high taxes. The government should only use force when any one or more constituents commit unlawful acts that endanger any part of society. The part of her philosophy that discomforts me a bit is the fact of her being in complete opposition against all facets of control meaning there is no welfare legislation, unemployment compensation, regulation during times of stress, certain rent controls, and so forth. This perhaps implies that once someone becomes rendered to financial distress they will remain there forever because they have no outside compensation or assistance. I say, perhaps welfare compensation and everything that I had mentioned above should not come out of the pockets of us the people and the workers of the middle and upper classes through levying of increasing taxation, but instead the money should come from the same amount of tax dollars that we have already been owing to the government’s income to support those who are impoverished or in the welfare class.

The level of taxation the government levies upon us should remain at a reasonable rate no matter how desperate they become to collect money. No middle and upper class people should bear the burden of working so hard to enjoy the fruits of their labor for so many years, to then suddenly have some totalitarian entity deprive them of all that they worked for and enjoyed having for the sake of creating equal distribution. There must be a balance between right wing and left wing in our society! Socialism, one world power, totalitarianism, and the termination of capitalism will not work. The termination of capitalism is what will destroy our country’s innovation, uniqueness, and effective means of trade. But in the same vein, not ever giving unto the poor and not supporting charitable funds and foundations will not work either. 

I know that the government fills their pockets by what we taxpayers give, but the government should not cause us middle class and upper class people, who work difficult jobs, to have to give unto welfare legislation so much that we have a financial status equivalent to those who are within the welfare system. Furthermore, and predictably through time, those unemployment compensators will gain enough money to where they have just as much as the middle and upper classes have once those classes are pulled down through increased taxation, thus creating a one-class-stratification system. The unemployment compensators have the liberty to only take so little for such a length of time to get them back up on their feet. So much wealth and prosperity cannot be borrowed and compensated to the extent that our nation transforms into a one-class-stratification system. We middle and upper class people cannot be enslaved for the rest of our lives to the ones who once were poor and now became no-longer-poor by the sweat of laborer’s brow.  

Determinism, Calvinism, and Predestination- Do We Truly Possess Free Will or Are We a Programmed Species like Robots?

              Do we human beings truly possess free will? Are our human cognitive processes truly determined and operated by us alone, or are we wound up like some placiticized toy preconditioned to be greatly limited in what we can do? If we do possess true free will, then to what extent do we possess that free will? Countless of philosophers both theists and atheists, along with, of course their rivals, the devout monotheists, creationists, and sectarians of all sorts have debated issues like this for centuries. Ever since the dawns of every new age and era, most especially the 20^th and 21^st centuries of ever-evolving technology, a multitude of philosophical, evolutionary, scientific, and religious theories of all sort have reared themselves into society. Each one seemingly to have one or two aspects of convincing claims of proposed truth, each one being competently defended by its devout groups of proponents writing books, giving speeches, and influencing our various cultures in which make it outstandingly difficult for anyone searching for absolute truth.

               Perhaps one of the most infamous philosophical inspections ever to exist would have to be of God and His objective nature. In the midst of all of these various religions combating each other with pertinacity about who God is, how He affects us, and what his plans and intentions are for us, it appears as though we, ourselves, are attempting to determine God’s fate for us through our sincere acts of influence. Regardless of what religion may or may not be objectively true, there is one particular query in which intellectuals are perhaps so pestered by and cannot excuse. This being mankind’s reality of free will.

               For those of us who believe in a creator, the general consensus of our multi-qualitative creator is Him being omniscient. Since we assert His omniscience, we must say He knows everything about us human beings, our likes and dislikes, our personalities, and so forth, because after all He did create us. He knows the beginning from the end and everything from each moment of the past and of the present and the future. For those of us who choose to operate in this thought process of faith in God, some of us like the idea and some of us don’t like the idea of  God setting up a blueprint for our lives or writing our entire life story, so to speak. Jeremiah 29:11- “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end,” a heart-warming scripture amongst other prolific scriptures messaged to us by the Judea Christian God moves devout believers to think of God as an unambiguous peace-loving, gracious, compassionate, and good God promising all of His followers prosperity. It continues on to say, “Then ye shall call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” It is not only the Judea Christian God who makes such promises like this to His followers but it is also the gods of the other monotheistic religions as well, such as Allah. Some of us will wrangle with the theory of God preplanning our decisions for us such as what careers we will undertake, what colleges we will attend, who we will marry and so forth, because we like the thought of knowing that we are in complete control of everything.

               Although, whatever the objective truth may be, whether God truly is predetermining every decision that we make to be what He so desired of us to make, or is predetermining certain decisions and leaving the rest for us to make, we cannot possibly know which theory is irrefutable. Or can we know which theory is irrefutable? Did God predetermine me to write this essay expressing a bit of cynicism and perturbing quandary? Some Christians and believers of God (not all) would say that what I am doing right now is implicative of challenging God or having mistrust in Him, some may even venture to say that I am quite possibly beginning to journey down a slippery slope of backsliding due to a frequent attitude of implacability in my process of querying.  

               Being the fact that I grew up in a Christian household, was taught Christian values, and during all of my early childhood and adolescent years partook in protestant practices and conformed to traditional customary standards, I have been highly predisposed to particular patterns of cognizance, cognitive   behavior, and beliefs. Ever since I entered into college, I have begun to develop a deep inquisitiveness about the origins and validities of everything that I have been encompassed by. Through the process of conversing and spending time with other interesting individuals all from other different Christian sects, from different religions, of different philosophical thought being atheistic, agnostic, theistic, and so forth, much has been learned and discovered. It has been such a journey of ambition, exhilaration, entailments of satisfaction and unsatisfaction, equally; nevertheless, strengths and weaknesses have been adopted. As I continue in my endeavor, I am creating a situation conducively possible of but not absolutely inevitable of rendering spiritual peril or impending faithlessness or inexorablly insufferable ambivalence.

My decision to embark on such a quest was influenced by my incertitude if whether or not I have been blindly following Christianity because of my proclivity to conform to its ubiquitous existence. Naturally, I have always been a person of enormous curiosity and always wanted to know more. Perhaps now, when I look deeply into retrospect, I see myself unknowingly keeping dormant within me the manifestation of my distinctive inclination to pry in order to avoid social constraint. Now that college has opened up a new world for me I have been impelled to embrace my curiosity to the maximum extent, and the act of questioning is perhaps not as insidious as some people would like to make me think.          

               With all of this now being said I shall present the focal point of my essay. It is an issue that continues to bother me, and it is the question: Does God program certain people to reject Him and certain people not to reject Him? This is a question in which revolves around the denomination of Calvinism and its theory of predestination. Much deliberate disputation has revolved around this doctrine for only God knows how long, and both sides of the colloquy seemingly have equally cogent evidence which I believe makes it unbelievably difficult for one to choose how to accurately perceive the nature of God. It is chiefly difficult for those who are non-believers, people whom we would like to minister to, or the nascent believers, people whom we intend to aid in their spiritual growth through loving care and counsel, to successfully and intimately unite with God.

The theory of predestination only implies one thing, and that one thing not being God predetermining our every move and step, but having chosen or elected certain individuals to come to repentance and receive salvation. If we as Christians are interpreting the text accurately and are preaching the gospel according to the theory of predestination, how can anyone possibly deem of our loving care and counsel and our Judea Christian God to be containing veracious trustworthiness and helpfulness? How can we trust a God who appears to be much like a child hovering above his set of toys making them do whatever destructive things He revels in having them do? How can we trust a God who offers grace, mercy, and salvation to a favorable elect, and punishes unrepentant sinners and rejecters of Him when He preconditioned them to do so? And for those of us who have repented and accepted Jesus into our heart, how do we know that God has not preplanned us to reject Him in the future, and thus will reject and punish us for what He designated? Conclusively, it seems as though we should all do what Paul says in the New Testament, “drink and be merry for tomorrow we die!” What is the use of straining ourselves to work so hard to be moral and pleasing to God when we might inevitably be of the large percent of the population who are a part of, what is said in Matthew 22:14 “Many are called, but few are chosen!” 

               Since this might be the case, someone like me has the tendency to claim the doctrine of predestination to be spurious because of its initial inclination to cause unbelievers and perhaps even the believers to repudiate God, and not only, it seems to contradict the loving nature of God that the Bible preaches. But what if the Bible truly is self-contradictory like many skeptics and non-believers disparage it to be?

Let’s juxtapose a few scriptures, shall we? These first two verses are among a good quantity of other verses involving the idea of predestination. Romans 8:29-30 “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” And in Ephesians 1:3-6 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”

               Apparently, verses such as 1 Timothy 2-4 seem to be contradictory to predestination saying, “For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our savior; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of truth.” And likewise we also have 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

               All of my life I have be in defense against predestination, however, an interesting thought crosses my mind reverts us back to the idea of God’s all-knowingness. If God knows the past and present as well as He knows everything to take place in the future, then of course, He knows of all of those who will reject Him and accept Him before He creates them. So then why would he create those who He knows will inevitably reject Him? Does He do it to balance everything out in reality and in the universe? If the rejecters of God were not in existence then we would be living in an impeccable world vacant of social constraint perpetuated by religions diversity and conflict, thus being vacant of the need for faith, growth, strength, effort to persevere, brilliance, and admirable meaning. One may ask, “Well, then, what is wrong with having a world like that? Why couldn’t it be heaven on earth? There is a heaven in existence after death anyways, isn’t there? Why did certain people have to be created to suffer?”

               This is perhaps the basis and or causation of atheism or agnostic aspersion against God. It is easier to deny God and believe that He doesn’t exist rather than to have to strain your mind to think about such things as this. Likewise, it is easier to asperse and despise God, do whatever you want, and live your life to the fullest before you die, because you have no idea where you are going after you die, and there is no way you can determine your fate. Conclusively, you might as well “Drink and be merry for tomorrow you die!”

               Allow me to look at things from a bit of an atheistic perspective as much as I possibly can. What if there really is no creator or omniscient, omnipotent God but maybe just some higher power of some sort? What if there is something metaphysical that possesses some governance over us but not complete sovereignty? What if there is some cosmic entity like what Karl Marx thought, a ‘dialectical materialism’ meaning that human beings are determined by an evolutionary economic class struggle. Karl Marx was a staunch atheist of course, though, additionally, in the metaphysical study of the branch of economic and social determinism, his theory seems to be an involuntarily inserted allusion to a higher being, not quite God and not quite human either, but definitely some external force of some sort. This type of thought can be used to avoid the whole scenario of the emotional and spiritual struggle involved in attempting to comprehend predestination and the entailments of religion. Alas, it is only a type hypothesis which cannot be verified, therefore causing one to run the risk of being reprobated after earthly demise. And of course, no one wants to run that risk, hence a believer contemplating on becoming a non-believer will retract from following through in becoming a non-believer.

               In now soon bringing this essay to a closure, I will end it with some good news after now expressing extreme cynicism and incertitude. In this final segment when I make reference to myself I am also being inclusive of everyone else who has repented unto God with a genuinely contrite heart and has truly trusted in Him and His gift of salvation, even though some of us have greatly wavered in faith and/or may have backslidden. I spoke with a friend last night whom is a devout believer of predestination, and I asked her, “If I decided to deny Jesus, this very night, after living a life for Him all of this time, are you saying that according to the theory of predestination, God had predestinated me to turn away from Him after having accepted Him all of these years?” To my surprise her reply was a yes. Slightly conversely, according to what is said in the gospel of Romans, my eternal salvation and destiny to abide in heaven cannot be lost, because all of my sin committed in the past, present, and future has been accounted for and washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ. At the age of seven when I repented of my sins and asked for forgiveness, I can still hereby assert that I did so with solemnity, and from thereupon did with my best efforts to live wholeheartedly for Jesus Christ. If I am sinning right now in my trepidation, doubt, resentment, and spiritual fatigue, and all of what these emotions entail, I will not suffer infernal punishment because I had asked for forgiveness and repented of everything in my earlier years. Furthermore, my repentance was authenticated through sincere contemplation on allegiance to God. After all, did God intend for me to write this essay to provoke my audience (you) in such a unique way that is highly unlike what you may expect from one who purports to be a believer of Christ?  

               The issue now for me and for those who are like me or are in a similar situation may be left to wonder if whether or not we are among the elect chosen by God. Dr. Richard P. Bucher of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Lexington, Kentucky poses a very interesting point to those of us asking who the elect are.

               “Who, then, are those who have been predestined for salvation? Is it possible to know? And, is it possible for us to know if we are among the elect? Yes, and again, yes! We must follow the Bible’s way of speaking about predestination. The Bible teaches this: If you currently trust in Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God who took away your sins, who along is your savior and the way to heaven, then the Bible addresses you as one of the elect. This was Paul’s method of teaching in his epistle to the Ephesians. He addressed the members of the Ephesian church at that time, those who had been saved by grace through faith in Jesus, as chosen, ‘before the foundation of the world… predestined’ (Ephesians 1:4-5) Paul does the same thing in his epistle to the Romans. He calls those members of the church of Rome who had been justified by faith ‘God’s elect.’ (Romans 8:33). If you now believe in Jesus as your personal Savior, the Bible addresses you as the elect. You are predestined for salvation! The Bible doesn’t teach, ‘Now you are a believer in Jesus Christ- but whether you are predestined to be finally saved no one can know for sure, only God knows.’ Such a teaching would plunge even the true Christians into deep doubt and despair. For how could they ever know for sure if they were going to be saved, if the identity of the elect was shrouded in mystery?”